Caryl Churchill
and Sarah Kane
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Thatcherism (1979-): A right-wing ‘revolution’
Reduction of subsidies: Theatre as a commodity
End of the Cold War: Political apathy
Postmodernism: Suspicion of ideological discourses
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‘In-Yer-Face Theatre’: Thatcher’s children?
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Experiential drama
No clear political agenda
Breaking taboos: (onstage) violence, foul language
Masculinity in crisis
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THEN (1970s)...
“Feminism brought women together, united them, gave
them a ‘group’ identity” (Aston and Harris 4). In the
theatre, this meant the creation of women’s companies
– such as Monstrous Regiment - and the search for a
new language in performance.
NOW (1990s onwards)...
“Feminism has not revolutionized or effectively
combated the majority of the injustices, cruelties and
inequalities that it brought to the public attention in the
1970s. Nor has it yet challenged the ‘new’ ones that
have arisen as a result of these processes” (10).
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‘This Disgusting Feast
of Filth’ (Daily Mail)
Content: From private to
public, from local to global*
Form: Realism itself is ‘blasted’
*‘The logical conclusion of the attitude that produces
an isolated rape in England is the rape camps in Bosnia.
And the logical conclusion to the way society expects
men to behave is war’ (Kane quoted in Bayley 20)
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‘Churchill’s vision of a world brought to
catastrophe by war, ecological disaster and
scientific perversion seems merely silly rather
than terrifying’ (Daily Telegraph)
Content: Same trajectory as Blasted, in a
dystopian structure (a warning?)
Form: Realism › Expressionism › Absurdism
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Compare the ending of each play...
Blasted: “Cate […] returns like a latter-day Jane
Eyre to feed and care for the blinded, traumatised
Ian” (Saunders 31)
Is this a return to the private realm? Does it
restore traditional gender roles?
Far Away: Joan also comes back from war to see
her husband. Is this “a sign of hope [...] based on
personal desire and commitment rather than
abstract ideals” (Kritzer 75)?
Or is it the culmination of a dystopian warning
against the personal without the political?
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Aston, Elaine. ‘But Not That: Caryl Churchill’s Political Shape Shifting at
the Turn of the Millennium’. Modern Drama 56.2 (2013):145-164
---. Feminist Views on the English Stage: Women Playwrights, 19902000, Cambridge: CUP, 2003.
Aston, Elaine and Geraldine Harris. ‘Feminist Futures and the Possibilities
of “We”?’ Feminist Futures? Theatre, Performance, Theory. Ed. E. Aston
and G. Harris. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. 1-16
Bayley, Clare. ‘A Very Angry Young Woman’. Independent 23 January
1995: 20.
Kritzer, Amelia Howe. Political Theatre in Post-Thatcher Britain: New
Writing 1995-2005. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Iball, Helen. Sarah Kane’s Blasted. London: Continuum, 2008.
Saunders, Graham. 'Love Me Or Kill Me': Sarah Kane and the Theatre of
Extremes. Manchester: MUP, 2002.
Sierz, Aleks (2001) In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today, London:
Faber and Faber.